This study reports five years of a school readiness intervention called “HABLA” (Home Based Activities Building Language Acquisition), designed to increase and enrich speech and literacy activities in the homes of economically and educationally disadvantaged Latino families with children between the age of 2 and 4. A team of trained home visitors provided two years of a 23-week program of visitation in which they met with parent(s) and child twice weekly. Both years presented a Spanish language adaptation of the parent-child home program model; home visitors provide intensive modeling and coaching of non-directive Spanish language use, conversation, and literacy activities. Administration of the PLS-3 in Spanish at the onset and culmination of each year of the program indicates significant increases in receptive and expressive language for each year of visitation (7.8 standard points for the first year, 4.4 for the second) with effect-size r ranging from .24 to 42. Participants had significantly improved their levels of oral Spanish skill and scored much higher than a comparison group of non-treated. A subset of graduates of the two-year program was tested as kindergarteners; they showed a continued advantage over a comparison group of 18 peers who had not received the intervention. For the graduates, both their Spanish PLS-3 scores and English PLS-4 scores were significantly higher, and their parents reported a continued effort to provide literacy experiences at home. The HABLA participants also showed a clear advantage for an English language test of phonological awareness, one of the strongest predictors of school success.

Figuerdo, L. (2006). Using the Known to Chart the Unknown: A Review of First Language Influence on the Development of English-as-a-Second-Language Spelling Skill. Reading and Writing, 19, 873-905.http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-006-9014-1

Gauvain, M., Savage, S., & McCollum, D. (2000). Reading at Home and at School in the Primary Grades: Cultural and Social Influences. Early Education & Development, 11, 447-463.http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1104_5

Lazar, I., & Darlington, R. (1982). Lasting Effects of Early Education: A Report from the Consortium of Longitudinal Studies. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 47, Serial No. 195.

Levenstein, P., Levenstein, S., & Oliver, D. (2002). First Grade School Readiness of Former Child Participants in a South Carolina Replication of the Parent-Child Home Program. Applied Developmental Psychology, 23, 331-353.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0193-3973(02)00112-0

Mann, V. A. (1986). Phonological Awareness: The Role of Reading Experience. Cognition, 24, 65-92. Also published under the same title in: P. Bertelson (1987). The Onset of Literacy, 1987. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

National Reading Council (2001). Putting Reading First: Helping your Child Learn to Read. Washington DC: The Partnership for Reading through the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), U.S. Department of Education.

Raver, C. C., & Knitzer, J. (2002). Ready to Enter: What Research Tells Policy Makers about Strategies to Promote Social and Emotional School Readiness among Threeand Four-Year-Olds. Washington DC: National Center for Children in Poverty.